The Ball Head 24 from Leica is a compact ball head intended for use with point and shoot cameras. It has a quick release system that allows the camera to mount directly onto the cork-coated mounting platform. One locking knob controls the movement of the ball, and a separate locking knob controls the 360° panning motion.

Rated 4 out of
5 by
Pete M from
Good compact ball headI use this with a range finder and a table top tripod. It works just fine, but one thing I don't like so much is if you back the Pan knob off too much (so that it rotates very freely) it can introduce some wobble. Not a big deal, you don't need to back the knob off that far to get the head to pan freely. All in all, for the extra cash I think the 38 is a better deal. I also have that one and it's perfect.

Date published: 2016-03-11

Rated 5 out of
5 by
Daryl from
Small/Lightweight and Performs Extremely WellThis is perhaps the best ballhead ounce for ounce. At 8 oz. it's extremely lightweight and although not tiny it is rather small. The quick release plate is dedicated to only Leica ballheads and is not arca swiss compatible, also tiny, it works extremely well without adding any appreciable bulk to the camera. Many cameras today are small with batteries or card compartments on the base, this is an ideal quick release as it is only 1-1/32 x 15/32 and will not block those compartment doors from opening. It does not have any anti-rotation properties however I found that coin tightening the plate it doesn't rotate. My tests with the ballhead was to put a heavy camera (medium format) with a long lens (180mm) in a portrait orientation so that the ball is supporting the camera at 90 degrees. The camera lens combination is almost 6 lbs and the quick release is on the camera body with the lens unsupported. This should not be possible with such a small/light ballhead but this is a serious piece of equipment and not a toy. The ballhead held the camera perfectly once set up, the photos were sharp (1/90 seconds to 2/3 seconds) and showed no vibration when viewed 1:1 and 2:1 on a 32 monitor. As would be expected from such a small unit there was slight creep with all the torque pulling the lens down slightly however it stabilized enough for my tests that lasted 30-45 minutes and did not creep further. I would normally never use this ballhead for such a task but it's a good test to see how well it can stand up to such heavy loads. When I next placed a 2 1/4 pound APS-C camera/lens combination on the head in the same position (with the lens again unsupported) the ballhead handled it with ease with super sharp images at the vibration producing speeds of 1/4 - 1/30 seconds. Some details that may not be clear from the photos and description: 1- locking the camera/quick release plate to the ballhead is done by loosening (unscrewing) the knurled collar under the cork platform to create room for the quick release plate to slide in through the opening in the cork and then retightening the collar, 2- the panning knob and pan function have no markings in degrees so this can be a slight issue if you need those for panos, the rotation is done with a platform not visible once mounted on a tripod so markings would not be useful at all, 3- the instruction manual says not to over tighten the knobs but I sure did with the heavy camera mounted vertically, it did not appear to damage anything and the head works perfect. Btw- the manual is useless as are all Leica manuals. Another ballhead that would compete favorably with the Leica 24 is the Really Right Stuff BH-25, which has the advantage and disadvantage of using Arca-Swiss plates, Markins makes some good units also. I didn't take away any stars because of price, while rather expensive there are big discounts available and all good ballheads are expensive, few perform well in this size and weight. I want to conclude by saying that there are many myths that exist about tripods, the one cited frequently is extending center columns on tripods make them unstable. I like to do my own tests and I recommend others do the same, good technique is as important as good equipment if not more so.